EuropeActive's Essentials for Personal Trainers

EuropeActive’s Essentials for Personal Trainers provides personal trainers with the most thorough information and best practices to help their clients achieve their health and fitness goals. Endorsed by EuropeActive, the fitness and health industry’s standard-setting authority in Europe, this manual is essential for all aspiring and qualified personal trainers and aims towards EuropeActive’s objective: “More people, more active, more often.”

The information contained in EuropeActive’s Essentials for Personal Trainers provides aspiring personal trainers with the basic competencies, skills and knowledge necessary for achieving level 4 status in the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), the baseline standards for registered personal trainers in Europe. The content builds on foundational concepts to provide practical knowledge and on-the-job examples to personal trainers so that they can deliver enjoyable and effective services to their clients.

Authored by fitness experts throughout Europe, EuropeActive’s Essentials for Personal Trainers provides a standard reference to inform this growing field. The first three chapters describe the role of the personal trainer, with topics covering professionalism and presentation, planning a personal training session and delivering a personal training session. Readers will then learn functional anatomy with chapters on skeletal articulations and joint movement, injury prevention and the muscular system. To understand the science behind exercise prescription, readers will learn about energy systems, the cardiorespiratory system, the nervous system and hormonal responses to exercise. Chapters focusing on lifestyle assessment, including health and fitness assessment, psychological aspects of personal training and nutrition, allow personal trainers to understand the unique needs of the various clients they serve. The book concludes with chapters on training adaptations as well as exercise planning and programming.

With more and more people turning to professionals for assistance in their quest for better health and fitness, the demand for qualified personal trainers in Europe has never been greater. EuropeActive’s Essentials for Personal Trainers is an ideal resource for those aspiring to become personal trainers in Europe and equips current professionals in the fitness industry with the tools they need in effectively serving their clients. Personal trainers who achieve EQF level 4 status demonstrate to both clients and employers that they have all of the pertinent knowledge and skills to be successful anywhere in Europe.

The European Register of Exercise Professionals (EREPS) uses the EuropeActive standards to ensure that exercise professionals are qualified to offer safe and effective fitness programmes to their clients across Europe. EREPS provides consumers, employers and partners in medical professions with the confidence that registered trainers are both competent and able to work to support its Code of Ethical Practice, which defines the rights and principles of exercise professionals. Referencing the EuropeActive standards and being registered mean that trainers have met the minimum standards of good practice and that they are committed to enhancing their skills and professional status through a process of lifelong learning.

EREPS is regulated by the EuropeActive Professional Standards Committee using the official European Qualifications Framework (EQF), which describes the knowledge, skills and competencies exercise professionals need for registration.

About the Editors

Thomas Rieger, DrRerSoc, has been the chairman of the standards council of EuropeActive since 2012. He holds a doctoral degree in social sciences with a specialization in sport science (German PhD equivalent) from the University of Tübingen and a master’s degree in public health. In 2007, he was appointed as a professor of sport management at the Business and Information Technology School (BiTS) in Iserlohn, Germany. At BiTS, he is the vice dean of the bachelor’s programme of sport and event management and the master's programme of international sport and event management. Previously, Dr. Rieger served as visiting professor at the Real Madrid Graduate School and the European University Cyprus in Nicosia. Before entering academia in 2006, he gained more than six years of experience in the fitness industry, especially in the fields of fitness marketing and quality management.

Ben Jones, BSc (Hons), is a founder and director of BlueSkies Fitness Ltd., a company that provides workplace wellness solutions to small- and medium-sized employers, offers learning and development consultancy, and manages the process of provider accreditation for EuropeActive. Mr. Jones has extensive experience in developing standards, qualifications, assessments and learning resources in the UK, Europe and UAE and has written for EuropeActive, Active IQ, VTCT, Lifetime Awarding and other organization. He is a master trainer for MEND, Momenta and TechnoGym and was one of the first PTA global faculty in the UK. Previously, he held the role of teaching and curriculum manager at Lifetime Training. Before entering the fitness sector in 1999 and going on to build a successful personal training practice and hold multiple fitness management roles, Mr. Jones studied physiology at Leeds University.

Alfonso Jiménez, PhD, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, FLF, is a professor of exercise science and health and the executive director of the Centre for Applied Biological and Exercise Sciences at Coventry University (UK) and a member of the scientific advisory board of UKActive Research Institute. Previous roles include professor and dean of the faculty of health, exercise and sports science at European University of Madrid (Spain) and main academic leader of the Real Madrid Graduate School; professor, deputy dean and head of school of sport and exercise science at Victoria University in Melbourne (Australia); professor and headd of the centre for sport science and human performance at the University of Greenwich in London (UK); and chairman of the standards council at EuropeActive. He was awarded honorary membership of EuropeActive in recognition of his outstanding service. He is currently a visiting professor and international research associate at ISEAL at Victoria University, visiting professor at the University of Greenwich and chair of the research and dissemination commission at the Healthy & Active Living Foundation in Spain. Before entering academia, Dr. Jiménez focused on management, research and sales in the fitness industry.